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4 | Music In The Renaissance Era

English Secular Vocal Music

Peter Kun Frary

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The Elizabethan Era refers to the English high Renaissance framed by the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). It was England's golden age and marked by national pride through extensive colonization, defeat of the Spanish Armada, economic prosperity and a flowering of poetry, theatre, music and literature.

Una Concerto | Lorenzo Costa (1460-1535) | National Gallery of Art

United Kingdom | The dark green area is the United Kingdom. England comprises the southern half of the island. | Wikimedia Commons

Role of Music

Music performance was an important leisure activity among noble and merchant classes in Renaissance Europe. You were expected to sing, read music and play an instrument while socializing. The inability to do so was a cause for alarm because it revealed poor upbringing and education. Elizabethan composer Thomas Morley (1557-1602) writes of humiliation as a young man at a dinner party:

But supper being ended, and Musicke bookes (according to the custome) being brought to the tables, the mistresse of the house presented me with a part, earnestly requesting me to sing. But then, after many excuses, I protested unfainedly that I could not; every one began to wonder. Yea, some whispered to others, demanding how I was brought up (Morley, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke).

Morley wrote this account to help sell his book, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke, a popular music instruction book for two-hundred years. He held a bachelor of music degree and was a leading composer of the Elizabethan Era. Less mentioned is the fact he owned a printing patent and was successful as a publisher and printer. Sheet music sales during this era was analogous to record (LP), CD and MP3 track sales today. The difference was Renaissance folk were involved in making music rather than passively listening. Public concerts didn't exist so secular music making centered around homes and royal courts.

Morley was a preeminent composer of madrigals and balletts.

Madrigal

The madrigal—a song for a small group of solo vocalists set to a secular poem—originated in Italy during the late Middle Ages. It came to fruition during the Renaissance and imported to England by Italians working at royal courts.

Madrigal lyrics were often amorous in content. Word painting—use of melody and texture to dramatize the meaning of the text—was commonly employed. Musical textures frequently alternated between polyphonic and homophonic.

Ballett

The ballett is a light dance-like piece written for a small group of solo vocalists. It's mainly homophonic with melody in the upper voice. Balletts are strophic: the same music is repeated for each stanza of the poem. A fa-la-la refrain was used, adding to the light character. Although both the madrigal and ballett originated in Italy, English composers gave these works a distinctive British flavor.

Ballett and madrigal music was chiefly performed at home with musicians seated around a small table. Thus, scores were printed with music facing out in three or four directions to facilitate group reading from a single book.

Second booke of songs or ayres | John Dowland (1563-1626) | Music score for performers sitting at a card table | Wikimedia Commons

Now Is The Month Of Maying

Now Is The Month Of Maying is Morley's best known ballett and still often performed. The lyrics celebrate springtime dancing, a metaphor for outdoor love making. Bawdy double meanings are typical of poetry and song this era.

Now is the month of maying,
When merry lads are playing,
Fa la la la la la la la la,
Fa la la la la la la la.
Each with his bonny lass
Upon the greeny grass.
Fa la la la la la la la la,
Fa la la la la la la la.

The Spring, clad all in gladness,
Doth laugh at Winter's sadness,
Fa la la la la la la la la,
Fa la la la la la la la.
And to the bagpipe's sound
The nymphs tread out their ground.
Fa la la la la la la la la,
Fa la la la la la la la.

Fie then! why sit we musing,
Youth's sweet delight refusing?
Fa la la la la la la la la,
Fa la la la la la la la.
Say, dainty nymphs, and speak,
Shall we play barley break?
Fa la la la la la la la la,
Fa la la la la la la la.

Listen to the King's Singers perform Now Is The Month Of Maying:

Now Is The Month Of Maying | Thomas Morley | First Booke of Balletts to Five Voyces, 1595 (1:55)

Because these pieces were intended for home entertainment, part assignment was flexible. Thus, a ballett might be performed by a group of vocalists, a mixed group of voice and instruments or an instrumental ensemble.

Never A Weather Beaten Sail

The Elizabethan song, Never A Weather Beaten Sail, was written by Thomas Campion (1567-1620). Friends and family performed this piece with a mixture of whatever instruments and voices were handy.

Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore.
Never tired pilgrim's limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast:
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest.

Ever blooming are the joys of Heaven's high Paradise.
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapor dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines whose beams the blessed only see:
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to thee!

Never A Weather Beaten Sail | Thomas Campion | Two Bookes of Ayres, 1613 | Listen 0:00 to 4:00

English Lute Song

A solo song with lute accompaniment was called lute song. Lute song was performed by a single singer accompanying themselves on the lute, allowing solitary and small household enjoyment of music.

Lute song represents the beginning of a genre known as solo song. Lute song was popular in England, France and Italy.

Lady Playing A Lute | B. Veneto, c. 1502-1531 | J. Paul Getty Museum

Lute song is about melody and lyrics and, thus, the lute fulfilled a subservient accompaniment role. Textures were largely homophonic: vocal melody with supporting chords. However, skillful composers wrote introductions and passages for the lute with counterpoint, but were careful not to upstage the singer.

Tablature

Hybrid notation was used for lute song: staff notation for the melody (singer), and tablature for the lute. Tablature is musical notation that indicates fingering on lines corresponding to the strings of the lute. In other words, it tells you where to put the fingers but not what it sounds like. French tablature indicates fret positions on the strings with alphabet letters: a = open string, b = first fret, c = second fret, etc. Spanish and Italian tablature use numbers.

Shall I Sue (1600) | John Dowland | Mensural notation melody (canto) and French Lute Tablature. | Wikimedia Commons

John Dowland

The greatest composer and lutenist of the Elizabethan era was John Dowland, 1563-1626, renowned for lute solos, lute song and virtuosic performances.  While working as lutenist to the English ambassador to France, 1580-84, he converted to Catholicism. After returning to England, he attended Oxford and earned a Bachelor of Music degree in 1588, a fact openly proclaimed on his published music. Labeled a papalist, he was rejected at Queen Elizabeth's court in 1594 due to anti-Catholic sentiment.

Subsequently, Dowland traveled widely on the Continent and served at the court of Christian IV of Denmark, developing an international reputation.

Dowland returned to England in 1606 and was appointed lutenist to James I in 1612, where he remained until his death in 1626. He ceased composing after 1612 but manipulated his existing musical works to reflect the fashionable mood of the Elizabethan Era: melancholy. “Semper Dowland, semper dolens” (always Dowland, always doleful) was his motto and a catchy one for the general public. He masterfully used print media to advance his career, becoming wealthy through sheet music sales and a bigger than life persona.

Lachrimae and Flow My Tears

Dowland's Flow My Tears began as a lute solo entitled Lachrimae, and Dowland added lyrics years later. Like many of his works, Flow My Tears is based on a popular dance. In this instance the Pavane, a slow and stately processional dance.

Flow My Tears | Tablature from Dowland's lute solo | Wikimedia Commons

This song was the seventeenth century equivalent of a chart topping hit. Dowland was aware of its status and made haste in publishing consort, vocal ensemble and lute song versions. He knew if he didn't arrange Flow My Tears, somebody else would and he'd lose revenue. Dowland's four books of ayres are the most significant English contributions to the genre of solo song.

Flow My Tears echoes a timeless woe of lost hope and love:

Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.

Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their last fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.

Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days, my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.

From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts, for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.

Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite.

Listen to Phoebe Jevtovic Rosquist, soprano, and David Tayler, lute, perform Dowland's Flow My Tears:

Flow My Tears (Lachrimae)| John Dowland | The Second Booke of Songs or Ayres of Two, Four and Five parts, 1600 (4:37)

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Vocabulary

Thomas Morley, Elizabethan Era, madrigal, ballett, word painting, strophic, Thomas Campion, John Dowland, lute song, tablature, consort, pavane

©Copyright 2018-24 by Peter Kun Frary | All Rights Reserved